The Prince went from Sydney two thousand miles by sea to Western Australia, a state as large as the combined areas of England, France, Germany, Austria, Spain, and Holland, with a population of less than half a million people to develop this stupendous territory. On the way, in traversing the Australian Bight, that borders the southern coast of the continent, the _Renown_ encountered weather remarkably bad even for this region of frequent gales. Green seas swept over forecastle and quarter-deck alike. The engines were slowed down. The big ship strained, clanked, and groaned, but proved her seaworthiness magnificently. The waves were still high in King George's Sound outside Albany, where owing to shallow water the _Renown_ had to lie four miles from land in a wide and but partially sheltered bay. Where the shore could be seen it lay in rocky grass-grown hummocks, on which the surf beat heavily. A picket boat conveyed the Prince and his staff through a narrow entrance into the small landlocked harbour, where they landed on a desolate pier, wet decorations flapping dismally in cold wind and spray. The entire population had turned out, however, despite the weather. The Governor of Western Australia, Sir Francis Newdegate, the State Premier, Mr. Mitchell, and a number of other members of the Government awaited the Prince upon the pier. The Mayor of Albany read an address from a wind-swept platform in front of a town hall prominently situated on a low hill facing a wide street that led down to the harbour. The crowd here was a varied one. It included traders, merchants, commission-agents, and manufacturers belonging to Albany itself, also large numbers of fruit-growers and farmers from stations in the interior of this prosperous land of orchards and wheatfields. Gatherings of returned soldiers and school children, also nurses and other war-workers flanked the general assemblage. A night train journey followed through rolling country and bush, with arable fields, apple orchards and orange gardens which looked most attractive next morning in brilliant sunshine in the freshest of rain-washed air. The Prince was cheered by gatherings at many wayside stations, including Parkerville, where a number of children, in charge of gentle-faced sisters in black robes, sang patriotic songs in the chill morning air as the train went through. About noon he alighted at Perth, capital of Western Australia, an extraordinarily beautiful city, with wide streets and solid masonry houses, situated on the low banks of the picturesque Swan River--here so wide as to be almost a lagoon.